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Item Intrastate conflict and transformation of the media system: The case of Afghanistan(2025-09-11) Farag, Tamer; Neuberger, Christoph; Kretzschmar, Sonja; Sehl, Annika; Wiethaus, Linda; Gäng, JanaThis study aims to extend the media system framework to analyse the transformation process of media systems within fragile states that suffer from intrastate conflict. This theoretical goal is achieved through the scrutinization of the transformation of the Afghan media system throughout the Taliban takeover. Through conducting 21 semi-structured interviews with Afghan journalists, the authors examined the Afghan media system before, during and after the intrastate conflict escalation in 2021. The results showed that the media system in Afghanistan was highly fragmented before the Taliban took over. Consequently, the Taliban capitalized on this fragmented structure by optimizing an effective digital propaganda campaign that facilitated their victory in 2021. As a result of this armed victory, the Taliban started their campaign to control the communication sphere, forming an authoritarian proto-state media system. The results help to enhance comparative media systems analysis and to refine dynamic and conflict-related aspects.Item Künstliche Intelligenz und gesellschaftliche Machtverhältnisse [Sammelrezension](2025-04-01) Krzywdzinski, MartinBesprechung von: Michael Heinlein / Norbert Huchler (Hrsg.), Künstliche Intelligenz, Mensch und Gesellschaft: Soziale Dynamiken und gesellschaftliche Folgen einer Innovation. Wiesbaden: Springer VS 2024, 530 S., 59,99 € ; Hartmut Hirsch-Kreinsen, Das Versprechen der Künstlichen Intelligenz: Gesellschaftliche Dynamik einer Schlüsseltechnologie. Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus 2023, 300 S., 35,00 €; James Muldoon / Mark Graham / Callum Cant, Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labour Powering AI. Edinburgh: Canongate 2024, 274 S., gb., 24,00 €; Cecilia Rikap, Capitalism, Power and Innovation: Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism Uncovered. London: Routledge 2022, 314 S., 49,57 €Item How team organization influences the ability to solve automation failures: an experimental study on human–AI decision-making in teams(2025-12-02) Krzywdzinski, Martin; Wotschack, Philip; Gonnermann-Müller, Jana; Gronau, NorbertAs production environments become increasingly automated and AI-assisted, managing automation failures is a growing challenge. This study examines how team organization—hierarchical versus self-managed—affects team performance in resolving such failures. Using a laboratory experiment simulating a realistic industrial setting, teams operated automated machinery supported by AI-based assistance. We hypothesize that communication mediates the relationship between team organization and performance outcomes (productivity and quality). The results show that self-managed teams communicate more frequently and with higher quality than hierarchical teams, leading to higher productivity and fewer errors. Structural equation modeling confirms that the effect of team organization on performance is fully mediated by communication. These findings highlight the importance of team communication and suggest that revisiting team organization in AI-driven production—by favoring self-management or enhancing communication in hierarchies—may improve performance. The study contributes to human–AI teaming research by integrating organizational design into experimental analysis.Item Quality and Quantity: The Role of Gratification and Situation Variety when Measuring Mobile Media Use(2025-11-01) Toth, Roland; Fernández, Aurelio; García-Manglano, Javier; de la Rosa, PedroMobile media use is usually measured through its quantity, particularly duration, in research. We argue that this approach overlooks how people use these versatile and complex devices. In this article, we explore the role of the variety of gratifications and situations as indicators of mobile media use quality. To investigate whether these dimensions can contribute to the measurement of mobile media use, we validate them against mobile vigilance. Using three waves of data (3,194 questionnaires) from a representative sample of 1,525 Spanish emerging adults (aged 19–25), we estimated a Multilevel Structural Equation Model. Our findings reveal that the variety of gratifications and situations are more strongly related to mobile vigilance an indicator of the relevance of mobile media in daily life than duration is. We advocate for considering both quantity and quality when measuring mobile media use to gain a deeper understanding of its dynamics and close relationship with mobile vigilance.Item Künstliche Intelligenz und Erfahrungswissen. Zur Formalisierbarkeit und Delokalisierung von Facharbeit(2026-01-14) Ottaiano, Mario; Schneidemesser, Lea; Butollo, FlorianDEUTSCH Der Beitrag untersucht aus arbeitssoziologischer Perspektive, wie der Einsatz von KI-Systemen in der prädiktiven Instandhaltung (PdM) die Bedeutung von Erfahrungswissen im Arbeitsprozess verändert und wie sich die Zusammenarbeit zwischen KI-Anwender- und KI-Anbieterunternehmen gestaltet. Die Fallstudie in einem Unternehmen der Papierindustrie zeigt, dass die Grenze der Formalisierbarkeit von Erfahrungswissen in der Instandhaltungsarbeit graduell ausgeweitet werden kann, wobei das domänenspezifische Wissen der Beschäftigten weiterhin eine wichtige Rolle für die Verbesserung der Software und die Interpretation der gewonnenen Daten spielt. Weil die Einführung des KI-Systems auch eine Delokalisierung von Wissen ermöglicht, kommt es zugleich zu einer konfliktträchtigen Verschiebung der Kompetenzen vom Anwenderunternehmen zum Softwareanbieter.Item Just the tip of the iceberg? State of the art of coordinated social media manipulation research(2025-12-26) Milzner, Miriam; Thiele, Daniel; Gong, BaoningSocial media environments are increasingly exploited by manipulative actors through coordinated social media manipulation (CSMM) campaigns: the intentional and deceptive orchestration of social media networks to manipulate content visibility and public opinion formation. In recent years, research on CSMM has grown rapidly, and the field lacks a systematic synthesis of empirical findings on observed campaigns. This study addresses that gap through a systematic review of 83 studies sourced from Web of Science and EBSCOHost, each analyzing observed digital traces of CSMM. We introduce a conceptual model that frames CSMM as a three-step process: covert operation, implementation, and influence. Using this model, we map the existing research findings, identify critical gaps, and outline future research directions. The review shows that research disproportionately focuses on election periods, state-backed actors, and text-based content on Twitter/X while overlooking multimodal forms, platform-specific manipulation strategies, and broader geopolitical contexts. Linking online campaigns to offline actors, as well as assessing the impact of CSMM, also remain challenges. Overall, we call for integrative analytical frameworks that incorporate comparative designs, cross-platform and multilingual analyses, and greater attention to the dynamics of audience interaction.Item Alternative media in Lebanon: The role of digital platforms in a polarized hybrid media system(2025-08-09) Farag, Tamer; Neuberger, Christoph; Kretzschmar, Sonja; Sehl, Annika; Pies, Judith; Wiethaus, LindaThis article aims to contribute to the literature about the roles and limitations of alternative media activism in different hybrid media systems by scrutinizing the organizational and discursive counter-hegemonic agency of digital alternative platforms in the Lebanese media system that is prone to high political parallelism, elite control, and polarization. To achieve this objective, semi-structured interviews with Lebanese journalists and a qualitative framing analysis for the alternative and mainstream media coverage of the Beirut Port explosion, which took place on the 4 August 2020 and led to the death of hundreds of people, were conducted. Our results show that Lebanese alternative media strive to escape the hegemonic control of sectarian and political groups by trying to achieve editorial and financial independence. Besides, they attempted in their framing of the explosion to develop a different narrative of the political conflict as a meta-sectarian one between the people and the ruling class from all the sects. However, they face the challenge of distinguishing themselves from the mainstream oppositional media that stands against the current regime. These results highlight the challenges and new possibilities opened by digital technologies for alternative media to escape the political hegemony in a polarized hybrid media system.Item Methodology of Algorithm Engineering(2025-10-25) Mendling, Jan; Leopold, Henrik; Meyerhenke, Henning; Depaire, BenoîtResearch on algorithms has drastically increased in recent years. Various sub-disciplines of computer science investigate algorithms according to different objectives and standards. This plurality of the field has led to various methodological advances that have not yet been transferred to neighboring sub-disciplines. The central roadblock for a better knowledge exchange is the lack of a common methodological framework integrating the perspectives of these sub-disciplines. It is the objective of this article to develop such a research framework for algorithm engineering. Our framework builds on three areas discussed in the philosophy of science: ontology, epistemology and methodology. The framework helps us to identify and discuss various validity concerns relevant for any contribution on algorithms in various areas of computer science.Item Right-wing populist affective governing: a frame analysis of Austrian parliamentary debates on migration(2021-10-20) Thiele, Daniel; Sauer, Birgit; Penz, OttoIn the aftermath of the ‘summer of migration’ of 2015, right-wing populist discourses became increasingly commonplace. This article by Thiele, Sauer and Penz investigates the resurgence of nativist and anti-migration attitudes in Austria by focusing on parliamentary debates between 2015 and 2019 concerned with migration, asylum policies and integration measures. Their theoretical approach builds first on Cas Mudde’s conception of right-wing populism—which proceeds from the premise of corrupt ‘elites’ and threatening Others—and then combines it with theories on the politics of emotion and affects. By employing a critical affective frame analysis, the study examines how right-wing populist arguments by political actors are always intertwined with affects, like anger, fear and hope, in order to mobilize followers and voters. They regard these connections as governing strategy aiming at right-wing exclusion, a mode of governing through affects, which tends to change the affective atmosphere in Austria, that is, what is conceivable, speakable and feelable with regard to migration and refugees. As it turns out, not only the notorious Freedom Party (FPÖ) (with a longstanding far-right tradition) but also the refurbished People’s Party (ÖVP) under their new leader Sebastian Kurz, draw on discourses that are exclusionary as well as affective, encouraging the Austrian population rather to fear migrants and to feel anger, in order to mobilize them against threatening ‘migration waves’ and ‘illegal immigration’.Item D[X]IM—the Dynamic Intermediary Model of communicative transaction on digital platforms in a networked public sphere(2025-10-31) Ohme, Jakob; Mayer, Anna-Theresa; Charlton-Czaplicki, Timothy; Gaisbauer, Felix; Wedel, Lion; Fan, Yangliu; Neuberger, ChristophThis study introduces the Dynamic Intermediary Model (D[X]IM) to address how knowledge processes have evolved with digital platforms by shifting from a dyadic to a triadic communication model of content flow with a potential intermediary. This intermediary, which can be a journalist, influencer, artificial agent, or another platform actor, provides services to the source and recipient of a message, thereby transforming traditional direct communication. It aims to better understand information diffusion in the networked public sphere by recognizing the intermediary’s role in altering source-recipient dynamics. The D[X]IM applies across different communication levels (macro, meso, and micro) and is designed for empirical research using diverse methodologies. It focuses on single instances of platform communication to explore the impact of intermediated communication. The article concludes with a research agenda and examples of how D[X]IM can be applied in empirical research.